Reflections on the History of US Cargo Liner Service (Part I)

Abstract

It is difficult to follow the history of the US merchant marine without trying to explain what went wrong. The purpose of this paper, which surveys almost two centuries of US cargo liner service, is not so much to point out what went wrong as to discover a few American liner shipping experiments which, for a time, went right. Perhaps, some lessons can be drawn from the histories of Black Ball Line in the early 19th century, States Marine Lines in the mid 20th century and Sea-Land in their formative years. These case studies reveal that being at the right place at the right time with the right idea and the right equipment was always the sine qua non of commercial viability. It will be suggested that a few of these ideas and operational strategies still have value.